Terms of Service

§ 1 What Costanza Poker Actually Is

• Costanza Poker is a free, browser-based card game for entertainment purposes only.
• It is a novelty. A gag. A bit. A thought experiment made playable. It is not a casino, a gambling platform, a financial product, or a life coach.
• The only thing you can win here is bragging rights and the occasional badge with a picture of a soup nazi on it.
• Think of it like pinball. But with cards. And the rules are backwards. And the AI bot is named after a fictional accountant from a 90s sitcom.

§ 2 Play Money Only. Seriously.

• No real money is involved. Not yours. Not ours. Not anyone's.
• All chips, pots, and wins are completely fictional. They have zero monetary value. You cannot cash them out. You cannot trade them. You cannot sell them on any marketplace, real or theoretical.
• If you somehow interpreted this game as a real-money gambling product, we sincerely apologize — but also, wow. Please read the rest of the internet before continuing.
• Costanza Poker is not licensed for real-money gambling in any jurisdiction. Using it as such is prohibited.
• Costanza Poker complies with our own strict policy of being a completely free, zero-stakes novelty game. No exceptions. Even if you're on a hot streak.

§ 3 Your "Account" (It Lives in Your Browser)

• Costanza Poker does not have traditional accounts. There is no email address, no password, no login page.
• Your player identity, name, avatar, stats, and badges are stored in your browser using localStorage — and referenced by a randomly generated ID on our servers.
• This is intentional. We like your privacy. We also don't want to run a user database at 3am when something breaks.
• If you clear your browser's cookies and local storage, you may lose your progress, stats, and badges. This is not a bug. It is a feature of the architecture. Back up nothing, because there is nothing to back up. Consider this your only warning.
• If you switch browsers, use a private/incognito window, or get a new device, your data will not follow you. Each browser is its own player. This is fine and expected.
• We do store limited game data on our servers (game results, basic stats). However, this data is associated with your randomly generated ID and is not linked to any personally identifying information about you.
• Pro move: don't clear your browser storage. Rookie move: do it right before a winning streak.

§ 4 Privacy

• We collect minimal data: game results, your chosen display name, your avatar selection. That's pretty much it.
• We do not sell your data. We do not have advertisers. We barely have a budget.
• We may log server-side game events for anti-cheat integrity and debugging purposes. We don't read them for fun. (They're not that fun.)
• Your IP address may be logged temporarily as part of normal web server operation. We don't care where you're from. We care that you enjoy your game.
• If you use a Twitter/X handle as your avatar, that's fetched from a third-party service (unavatar.io). Their privacy policy applies to that request.
• We use no tracking pixels, ad networks, or third-party analytics cookies.

§ 5 Be Cool. That's The Whole Policy.

• Don't attempt to cheat the leaderboard, exploit the game engine, or reverse-engineer the server for unfair advantage. The bot isn't that impressive. You don't need to cheat to beat it.
• Don't use automated bots to farm stats (ironic, given the bot-vs-bot mode exists for legitimate testing).
• Don't impersonate other players, use offensive display names, or generally be weird about it.
• Don't attempt to run the game as a real-money gambling service. (See § 2. Seriously.)
• The golden rule: if George Costanza would do it as a scheme, don't do it here.

§ 6 Disclaimers (Here Come the Big Words)

• Costanza Poker is provided "as is," without warranty of any kind, express or implied.
• We make no guarantees that the game will be available 24/7, bug-free, or that the AI bot won't occasionally pull off a ridiculous bad beat. (It will. It absolutely will.)
• We are not responsible for any distress caused by losing a pot you should have won. Or any pot you should have lost but did win. Variance is a cruel and equal-opportunity jerk.
• This game is purely for amusement and entertainment. If you are making life decisions based on your performance at an inverted poker game played against a chatbot named Costanza, we gently suggest branching out.
• Costanza Poker is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Seinfeld, NBC, Sony Pictures Television, Castle Rock Entertainment, or any associated rights holders. It's a card game. The name is a coincidence that isn't really a coincidence, but let's leave it there.

§ 7 Limitation of Liability (Please Don't Sue Ray)

• To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Costanza Poker and its creator shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages.
• This includes, but is not limited to: lost profits (there are none), lost data (keep your storage clean), emotional distress caused by the river card, or any injury sustained from aggressively slamming a desk after a bad beat.
• Ray is poor anyway. Not in a sad way — in a "he made a free poker game on the internet" way. There's nothing to get. Move on.
• The aggregate liability of Costanza Poker, in any case, is zero dollars and zero cents. Because nothing here costs anything.
• If you are in a jurisdiction that does not allow limitation of implied warranties or exclusion of incidental damages, some of the above may not apply to you. But also, you're playing a free browser card game, so.

§ 8 Changes to These Terms

• We may update these Terms from time to time. Changes will be reflected in the "Last updated" date at the top of this page.
• Continued use of Costanza Poker after any changes constitutes acceptance of the new Terms.
• We will try to make any significant changes obvious. We will not bury a "we now own your firstborn" clause in a footer update. Probably.

§ 9 Governing Law

• These Terms are governed by the laws of the state of California, USA, without regard to conflict of law principles.
• Any disputes shall be resolved in the courts of Los Angeles County, California — unless both parties agree the whole thing is too silly to pursue, which we strongly recommend.
• If you have an actual legal concern, please reach out before doing anything dramatic.

§ 10 Contact

Got questions? Something broken? Found an actual legal issue with these Terms? You can reach out via @rayzorfold on X/Twitter. We'll do our best.

For name lock or account issues, contact us the same way and we'll sort it out manually like civilized adults.